faith

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Deuteronomy #1 Wandering in the Wilderness

In Deuteronomy Chapter 1, verse 2-8 tells us that it is eleven days journey from Horeb (Mt Sinai) to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mt. Seir, and that in the 40th year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel, expounding on God’s law, telling them that God had kept his pledge, had placed the “promised” land before them and that they should go in and possess it. I’m struck by the fact that it took the children of Israel 40 years to make an 11 day journey. 40 YEARS! Two whole generations have passed before they are even in sight of the “promised” land.

Even God’s people can get side-tracked.  An inadvertent decision can change the direction of our lives so profoundly that a new course must be charted to get us to the intended goal.  In the blink of an eye, everything changes, and we can feel that change in our hearts. We know, and it’s too late to turn around and choose differently, as if we, in our willfulness, mired in the situation, could even remotely comprehend the master plan. But, there it is, that streak of arrogance that sets into motion a whole new game plan, and God says to us, “OK, you want to go down that road? We can do that. I can do that, but know this; it is the road of your choosing, not mine, and if you insist on your 40 years in the desert, we can do that, but you will have a time of it. ”

Sometimes our journey requires a detour, a side trip, a scenic route that’s designed to hone us into the kind of person who is ready to take on the challenges of the “promised” land. A seemingly insignificant choice has affected a thousand other choices – our own as well as those of others – and now we must live by our choice. We have already set into motion a chain reaction that will not only impact us, but also countless others, too, and so the wandering begins, our time of drifting, our season of testing.

It’s not God who loses faith, it is us. We are the breakers of promises, the destroyers of covenant, and the seekers after “other” gods, like money, fame, praise, and all manner of material things. We are the faithless ones, and how long our detour takes, the scope of its width depends on us, on our action, or lack thereof, and sometimes it can take a lifetime to circle back to where we belong. And once we have returned, we are to “go in and possess” that place that God has set aside for us.

~SLM

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A Matter of Faith

And Christ said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31)

What is faith? The Webster’s defines it as:  sincerity of intentions, complete trust, and a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. It’s a word we all use every day in many situations without really understanding it. Many times we say we have faith, but our actions belie our inner belief. We simply use it like a paper plate, something that is useful for the moment, only to be discarded when we don’t need it anymore.

Faith implies loyalty, commitment, conviction. It’s a hope, a belief, and an expectation of surety, and as such is an act of reverence.  Matthew 18:18-19 says, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be[a] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” But, so many times we let other considerations and influences encroach upon what we say we believe, and we decide that we, not God, have the answer, the solution. We take matters into our own hands, forgetting completely about our faith, about how whatever we bind on earth is also bound in heaven.

Sometimes (and honestly, often times) we are with God as teenagers are with their parents. We roll our eyes and say, “what do you know old man?” Not understanding, or perhaps willfully forgetting, that He does know, He does have a plan, and his resources are greater and more substantial than we can even comprehend! We get impatient; we discard our faith, never understanding that when God tags someone out of our lives, and replaces them with a new player, a fresh player, it’s because of his understanding, his comprehension, and his plan for our growth. We have to take it on faith, no matter how difficult or upsetting, no matter how painful it is, we must hold fast to the knowledge that God is trustworthy, that God is binding us to what we have asked of him.

If we dissent, if we show no conviction, it’s as if we are like Adam; we tell God “NO, not your way, my way!” But, if we keep our faith, hold fast in our belief, then we are like Christ; we tell God, “If this is my cup, I shall drink all of it,” trusting that through his guidance, we will become better versions of ourselves.

~SLM